Separate event of the Swedish Presidency. More information at the conference website

Member State ministers responsible for eGovernment are scheduled to meet on the eve of the Conference, 18 November 2009, to agree on a Ministerial Declaration that will set out the path for the field of eGovernment up until 2015. The Ministerial Declaration will be presented jointly by the Swedish Presidency and the European Commission on the first day of the Conference.

The Swedish Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, Mats Odell, and the Vice President of the European Commission, Siim Kallas, will set the scene for the conference and give their views on eGovernment over the next five years in the European Union.

Under the Italian, United Kingdom and Portuguese Presidencies Ministerial declarations were agreed, laying the foundation for the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, inspiring collaboration between Member States and fostering progress in eGovernment on the European level.

In this session, the Swedish Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, Mats Odell, and the Vice President of the European Commission, Siim Kallas, will present the Malmö Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment. The declaration will set out a joint vision and policy programme for eGovernment for the period up to 2015.

Also presented in this session is the Industry Declaration, drawn up and issued by DIGITALEUROPE and presented by the Director General of Digital Europe, Bridget Cosgrave.

The European Union and its Member States have made great progress in creating the Single Market. This is a historical achievement. However, to further foster growth and social cohesion, the Single Market needs to be consolidated and adapted to the changing requirements of the global economy.

Old organisational structures prevent European government administrations from working effectively with each other. More also needs to be done to increase the mobility of citizens and businesses across Europe, in particular by removing administrative barriers. By using the newest technologies, Europe can overcome these obstacles.

Speakers in this session will discuss the opportunities offered by new services to stimulate mobility on the European labour market, create new jobs, reduce administrative burdens and increase the flexibility of administrations.

The financial and economic crisis has shown once again the need for European countries to work together if they wish to achieve lasting prosperity. The recent crisis is a global phenomenon that no country can tackle on its own. The European Single Market has been an essential stabilising force, the functioning of which has relied increasingly on the integration of ICT in the workings of government administrations. eGovernment has played a vital role in improving the efficiency of governments throughout Europe. It has also supported social and political integration by including more citizens and businesses in national and European governance processes. In this session, Mats Odell, Swedish Minister responsible for Local Government and Financial Markets, and other distinguished panellists will discuss how governments can actively develop eGovernment in order to create the ‘eUnion’.

eProcurement can save billions of Euros for businesses by reducing the administrative burden and by increasing transparency. Public procurement creates market opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises. Opening up public procurement procedures within the Single Market will increase cross-border trade and competition and will reduce costs for public authorities.

eProcurement systems are already functioning in several EU Member States. However, many public administrations lag behind industry in electronic data exchange with their suppliers. The lack of common standards is a major obstacle for companies – especially small and medium sized businesses – which want to supply services in a country other than their own.

Speakers in this session will analyse eProcurement processes from the user’s perspective, bringing forward successful examples and highlighting important cross-border initiatives.

By 2020 citizens and businesses should no longer face obstacles in participating in public decision-making. Advanced tools – possibly building on gaming and virtual reality – should enable citizens to follow-up on decisions that have been taken and let them see how their contributions have been taken into account in the decision-making process. Opinion mining, visualisation and modelling will help to shape and guide public opinion. Simulations will facilitate forecasting of potential outcomes of proposed policy measures.

These processes and tools will have to be transparent, trustworthy and devoid of manipulation. The outcomes of such consultative processes should be faster and more efficient in terms of revising policy and making decisions.

Contributors to this session will discuss the potential of advanced mass collaboration tools which embody new governance models and enhance the developments of new eGovernment services.

Climate change has become reality. It represents one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) in its Fourth Assessment Report (2007) predicted that, unless action is taken, the global average surface temperature could rise by 1.8 – 4 C this century, which would have serious consequences for life on Earth. It is generally agreed that this warming is largely as a result of human activities.

What can or should governments do to reduce their own carbon footprint and overall environmental impact and what role can information and communication technologies play?

In this session, representatives from government at national and local level and from industry will give an insight into measures that are being, can be, or should be, taken to build a sustainable eUnion.

Simplifying administrative procedures is key to improving the environment for businesses. With only a month to go before the implementation of the Services Directive, a closer look will be taken at its impact on eGovernment, in particular on administrative simplification.

EU Member States are required under the Directive to simplify their procedures, set up Points of Single Contact and ensure the possibility for service providers to complete their procedures and formalities at a distance and by electronic means. These practical measures will improve the Single Market for services by making it easier for service providers to do business in other Member States.

This session will give an overview of the solutions and ongoing activities in the EU regarding improved access to cross-border electronic procedures through Points of Single Contact.

The Services Directive – Making Life Easier for Entrepreneurs, fact sheet for parallel session 4

A multi-million Euro research program called Government 2.0 has concluded that most e-gov initiatives are merely scratching at the surface. Funded by many governments and conducted by think tank nGenera, the program argues that most e-gov initiatives are mired in old thinking such as the creation of “web sites,” “government portals,” “joined-up government” and “one stop services.” As such they are missing the much bigger opportunity to change the way governments orchestrate capability to create and deliver services – ultimately changing the division of labor in society for economic and social development and social justice.

The research also shows how the Internet holds the promise to change more than the business of government, but democracy itself. If the first wave of democracy established elected and accountable institutions of governance, but with a weak public mandate and an inert citizenry. The second wave is being characterized by strong representation and a new culture of public deliberation built on active citizenship – appropriate for the new world and a new generation of digital natives.

Government 2.0 was directed by world renowned author Don Tapscott. For the first time, he shares insights from the program and from his newest book GROWN UP DIGITAL, on how to transform government for the digital age.

Information has become a key asset in society and our dependency on information is increasing. This is certainly the case for government administrations, which are among the biggest information processing organisations in society. Their day-to-day work depends on good quality and accurate information and many people and organisations are in turn highly dependent on this information.

Many changes have taken place in public sector information handling from the local to the European level. This session will discuss the major trends and solutions for better access to and use of public sector information. It aims to show how easy and reliable access to public information is the foundation for developing new services and enhancing the growth of the services sector and for increasing the transparency and accountability of governments.

A panel of persons with views on the production, use and value of information will in this session discuss the Power of Information from their own professional perspective.

Empowering citizens is a topic of growing importance on the eGovernment agenda. The goal is to give people a greater voice in policy through electronic channels. Recent experiences of the European Parliament, online consultations in the European Union and the Member States and other initiatives around the world provide some examples of how this can be done.

Still many questions for the future remain unanswered. How can governments engage its citizens and provide better services? What is the role of intermediaries and local communities? How can we make better use of citizens’ combined experience and wisdom?

In this session a distinguished panel will discuss the new opportunities that have arisen, for example through social media (web 2.0), for democratic participation and engagement.

The European eGovernment Awards is an initiative of the European Commission. Its aim is to demonstrate the benefits of information and communications technologies (ICT) for society. The European eGovernment Awards also support the implementation of European eGovernment policies and strategies and aim to facilitate good practice exchange in the use of ICT by public services.

The winners of the European eGovernment Awards 2009 will be chosen from among 52 selected finalists by a jury. Four awards – corresponding to the different priorities of the European Union’s eGovernment policy framework – will be given to the best and most innovative projects in Europe in the eGovernment area. A separate public prize will be awarded based on the online votes cast by members of ePractice.eu.

The five winning projects will be announced during the Awards ceremony by Mats Odell, Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets and Christine Leitner, Project Director, Awards Consortium, Chair of the Online Voting Committee, Center for European Public Administration (CEPA), Danube University, Krems, Austria

Electronic identity (eID) is essential for citizens to fully participate, be heard and accounted for in digital life. It is a facilitating technology that allows for trustworthy interactions with banking systems, social websites, enterprise applications and government. The European Union and its Member States have taken several initiatives to develop eID management solutions to meet such needs.

However, seen from the citizen’s point of view the current solutions are not interoperability, have unclear privacy policies and in general a lack transparency, accountability and user control.

This session brings together distinguished representatives of European eID initiatives, who will report on their own experiences and future trends. The session will be organised as an interactive discussion involving panel participants as well as the audience.

The demand for services which are more in tune with citizens’ wants and needs is increasing. New services will be more beneficial if there is greater cooperation between users, governments, businesses and academia in their development.

This session aims to show how users and innovators can collaborate to find new ways to provide valuable services to citizens and businesses.

In this session, a panel of speakers will discuss what can be done to encourage the development of new and innovative government services.

Effective and efficient service delivery for citizens and businesses is high on the agenda of government administrations across Europe. ICT can help governments to reduce costs while at the same time improving services offered to citizens and businesses.

To support these goals the European Commission launched in 2007 an initiative on reducing administrative burdens. Since 2007 cost reduction measures have been analyzed in 13 different policy domains in 27 Member States. These will provide useful input for future policies.

In this session the findings of this analysis will be discussed and examples of good practices at national level will be shown.

One third of the European population (over 150.000.000 EU citizens) is currently considered socially disadvantaged, most of it suffering from multiple difficulties leading to social exclusion (economic, physical, educational, cultural, geographical, political factors etc.) and therefore the one part of society that most uses and is in strong need of public social services. The same one third of population is the one that costs more to governments in terms of both financial and human efforts. It is this one third population that is not using/accessing themselves eGovernment services and such percentage is deemed to remain unvaried by 2015.

There is therefore an urgent need to address such critical mass in a more structured way and make the delivery of public services more efficient and effective in order to reach the widest possible part of population, so as to increase social impact and cohesion by ensuring that all citizens, including the socially disadvantaged, gain real advantage and benefit from ICT-enabled public services, irrespective of whether they use/access ePublic services themselves or though other human intermediaries on their behalf.

Building an eUnion makes it easier for citizens and businesses to move and work in any EU Member State. This leads not only to an increasing flow of digital data but also to increased security risks and specific challenges to rights to privacy.

The secure exchange and storage of personal data requires innovative legal and technological solutions that can ensure an automatic compliance with privacy and security provisions as well as being user friendly and efficient. A balance that needs to be struck between increased efficiency and transparency on one hand, and security and privacy, on the other.

In this session, a panel of speakers will address the importance of a secure, as well as efficient, infrastructure for information management, from their own professional perspective.

We are living in a period of considerable social and economic turmoil. Governments have to learn how to live-up to new and unprecedented challenges. The globalisation of the economy calls for new forms of governance. In this new world, the way citizens, businesses and governments work together will have to change as well.

ICT can contribute to developing these new forms of interaction between governments, citizens and businesses. It can support new forms of local and global democracy and new forms of collaboration between the business community and governments.

In this session, a panel of speakers will present their visions of ICT and future societies. The audience is invited to take part in this discussion.

An efficient and effective European Union requires seamless interaction and communication between public administrations across Europe. This is only possible if there is cross-border interoperability between public administrations.

Throughout 2009 the European Commission has studied in depth European interoperability issues in order to determine future priorities. The aim of this exercise was to identify key problems in cross-border interoperability and prepare a future European Interoperability Strategy. The three most important issues identified for the future are trusted information exchange, interoperability architecture and ICT implications of new legislation. Accompanying measures must include the raising of awareness of interoperability issues and sharing of best practices.

In this session, several distinguished experts will address some of the most pressing issues in the area of cross-border interoperability and engage in a discussion on relevant issues with the audience.

International cooperation significantly advances work in eGovernment, which has been shown by the results of cooperation between EU countries. Should this collaboration end at the EU borders, or are there areas within eGovernment in which governments and administrations can cooperate on a global scale? Who should cooperate, in which fields, and how? How to make the best use of resources in today’s economic environment? How should global teamwork be organised, resources shared and actions coordinated? During this session representatives from industry and international organisations will discuss and demonstrate how global digital cooperation can make a difference.

This session is the final session of the Conference, where the Swedish Minister, Commissioner Siim Kallas and the Polish Minister conclude the discussions and outcome of the Conference.

The Polish Minister will at this session announce the forthcoming 6th Ministerial eGovernment Meeting and Conference, to be held during the Polish Presidency of the EU in the 2nd half of 2011.